Ben-gurion Stipulates Conditions for Joining Cabinet After Elections

August 2, 1965

TEL AVIV (Aug. 1)

David Ben-Gurion, the ex-Premier now campaigning on behalf of his own Israel Labor List in the forthcoming elections to the Knesset (Parliament), said here today, at an election rally, that his faction would be ready to join Israel’s next Government providing certain other parties were to be excluded from the next coalition. He named specifically, among the parties he would want excluded, the joint list of Herut and the Liberal Party, and the Communist Party.

Meanwhile, the Mapai Party Secretariat, which Mr. Ben-Gurion is fighting, has referred the move to expel him and his political adherents to the party’s Court of Honor. The Secretariat and party leadership had already voted the expulsion. But Reuben Barkatt, secretary of Mapai, said today that, in accordance with strict constitutional provisions, such a step must be decided finally by the Court of Honor. There was little doubt, however, that the Court of Honor would rule for expulsion.